The present technology relates to a sound processing apparatus, a method, and a program and, in particular, to a sound processing apparatus, a method, and a program capable of performing sound source separation more easily and reliably.
Known technologies separate sounds output from a plurality of sound sources into the sounds of the respective sound sources.
For example, as an element technology for establishing both the transmission of realistic sensations and the enhancement of the sound clearness of a sound communication device, a background sound separator has been proposed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-205161). The background sound separator estimates steady background sounds using minimum value detection, the averages of spectrums only in background sound intervals, or the like.
In addition, as a sound source separation technology, a sound separation device capable of properly separating sounds from adjacent sound sources and sounds from distant sound sources from each other has been proposed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-238964). The sound separation device uses two microphones, i.e., an adjacent sound source microphone (NFM) and a distant sound source microphone (FFM) to perform sound source separation by independent component analysis.